Posted by Mike on July 26, 2000 at 17:16:12:
In Reply to: Identification of ?????? Help???? posted by J.D. on July 26, 2000 at 14:08:58:
Hi JD, let me start off by saying that Joe Baker is very correct and made some great points. I suggest you ask your band director (probably not a dork, but you shouldn't say so anyways) to check out this discussion when a few more folks have posted. If that's not possible, you can print it out and show it to him (her?) or save it to disk for future reference.
My two cents: maybe in middle school literature the trombone and euphonium play similar parts (their ranges are the same) but as you progress through high school and more advanced literature you will find extremely varied and differing parts for the two instruments. If your band didn't have euphonium players, the part could be played by a trombone, but the sound would be different from what the composer or arranger intended. Look at the top left corner of the music: if it says Baritone/Euphonium, then that's what you should play. Heck, trumpet, clarinet, flute, and oboe ranges are similar (they overlap quite a bit anyways) but I wouldn't recomend switching them around! If you really wanted to, you could play all the parts on a piano or two, but that wouldn't be quite right would it?
OK, so that was more like my $1.98, I get carried away sometimes.
Hope this helps out a little, and I'm serious about showing your band director this discussion.
MF